If you have been playing other auto-battlers in the past, you should quickly feel right at home with Storybook Brawl. Even if you are discovering the genre, the game is simple enough that getting a solid understanding of the mechanics should only take a few days of play.
Yet, it can be very frustrating to know how the game works but not get the high finishes that you want. You may not really know what is strong and what isn't as you start playing.
In this article, we cover this problem specifically by offering basic strategies that should get you good results while you figure out your own play style and preferences.
As you read this article, you'll pick up on minion types you can snowball easily with, Heroes that are easy to pilot while highly effective, and Treasures that instantly unlock a new game plan. Let's dive deep into the must-know strategies to start mastering Storybook Brawl.
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The Royal Family and the basics of snowballing
Every tribe has its strengths, and you probably will see more elaborated strategies in other guides. But what I have particularly enjoyed with the Royals tribe is how easy they are to understand and work with.
Romeo, Juliet, and King Arthur are the core of this synergy, meaning we need to find a way to save some health until we reach level four. Our goal will then be to triple those as early as possible, so King Arthur can start buffing other Royals and guarantee we have some scaling ability.
Once we have this base set, we can build around this core with other Royals, such as Lancelot or Court Wizard, which both immediately contribute to making our army stronger. Any Royal we can triple is a good contribution if King Arthur's in your court.
But particularly important are the Questing units: Cinder-Ella, Brave Princess, and the Nutcracker. First, they provide treasures if we can complete their quests, which makes us stronger while contributing to early game stability.
On level 3 (tripling Romeo or completing Brave Princess' quest), Cursed Throne is another way to keep growing our units through the course of the game. On level 4, Sky Castle (Triple Juliet, King Arthur, or completing The Nutcracker's quest) allow us to go crazy and aggressively look for Royal units only. Especially in the later tiers, being able to level Lancelot or Hercules quickly will do a ton of good to our army. Down the line, you can replace those with more combat-oriented Treasures, like Reduplicator for example, in order to maximize the Juliet-Romeo synergy.
Once we are all set, we can start focusing on Spells, which are more opportunistic while we look for specific units. Ideally, we want to buff Juliet (considering she comes back in combat with Romeo), Lancelot (at least until we can complete his quest), and Hercules (for similar reasons to Lancelot).
Lastly, there are a few Heroes which help the tribe perform better :
- Mihri, King Lion is an obvious pick to go along with the tribe
- Gwen can instantly level King Arthur in order to get the +4|+4 buff earlier.
- Muerte is cute to summon several Juliets with Romeo's Last Breath. It rewards you for going all in on Juliet with spells.
- Mrs.Claus is fine, considering all Royals we look for are Good characters.
- Zippee the Zombee works well to get copies of our key units and snowball the board.
- Snow Angel can find you some Royal when you level up.
Spells are the secret ingredient to success
Spells are the reason I think Storybook Brawl is such an impressive game. They are the core of some pretty competitive strategies. Alongside Mages or some specific secrets, knowing which spells to take and when can bolster your board in a significant way. And even better, these aren't limited to space on the board, meaning you can virtually have unlimited scaling.
The basic of the Spell synergy are two units: Wizard's Familiar and Spell Weaver, both units that grow as we play spells. Later on, they will be complemented with Monster Book for more spells, and Aon, for even more growth. Scion of the Storm waits in Tier 6 and should huge by the time you can purchase it.
But the key part of this synergy, and what allows making it a devastating one, are the treasures.
The most important in my opinion is Crystal Ball, as it enables playing an unlimited amount of spells per turn, as long as we get targeting ones.
Alongside this mandatory treasure, there are a ton that can be helpful :
- Boiling Beaker is a great early treasure as it allows growing our units much faster, and quickly stabilizes our combat ability in the early stages of the game.
- Merlin's Slippers are great for flexibility and should save you a ton of gold you would otherwise spend rolling to find targeting spells.
- Merlin's Hat fulfills a similar role, saving us gold and allowing for more spells per turn. Alongside Crystal Ball and Merlin's Slippers, you could just go nuts on spells from this point on in the game, which can happen very quickly if you triple units in Tier 3.
Once you reach Tier 4, where you might have more trouble tripling units unless you stop focusing on the spells for a bit, treasures become stronger, although they have less synergy with one another. But as long as you have the Crystal Ball, you should be fine :
- Forking Rod is really strong as you can double all the cheap zero or one-cost targeting spells.
- Deck of Many Things is cute if you have a ton of Mages benefiting from piling on spells, but not I would recommend it. Monster Book does a similar job and doesn't take a treasure slot.
- Moonsong Horn is a worse Merlin's Hat
- On level 6 and 7, all spell-related treasures are busted, so feel free to pick those if you get there.
You probably guessed it by now, but Treasures are the important factor in order to make the Spell synergy fulfill its potential. Nonetheless, there are a few heroes that can help us :
- Celestial Tiger isn't bad and rewards us for aggressively looking for the trio of Cristal Ball, Merlin's Hat and Merlin's slippers.
- The Sphinx is a bait in the spell synergy. You could see it as something close to Merlin's hat to get your spells for cheap, but it takes a really long time to get enough in the pool.
- Merlin and Potion Master are both go-to picks that kind of forces you to go for Spells.
- The Fates isn't bad if you find Wizard's Familiar as your first buy.
- Peter Pants is the star of this synergy, just aggressively find Wizard's Familiar and Spell Weaver early on, then triple random units to find the treasures while buying spells.
Gepetto, Peter Pants highlight strong, easy-to-pick-up Heroes
Now that we have covered the big synergies in the game, let's talk about the Heroes I think are the easiest to pick up and get top 4 with, even if you are just familiar with the basics of Storybook Brawl:
Just pick Last Breath units along the way, there are some in every tier, and you should be on your way to an easy top 4. It's important not to be greedy early on and protect your health. Once you reach Tier 5, some great Last Breath units are available like Baby Bear, Three Big Pigs, and Wombats in Disguise. Tripling those and finding Dracula's Saber in the Treasures should be a great power spike.
Gepetto gets stronger as he levels up, so you will get some passive scaling as well.
The ultimate tempo pick, Peter Pants wants to find every possible early scaling mechanic and abuse it. Although you are locked in at level 3, you will get a lot of opportunities to scale, either picking experience and abusing your passive buff or finding units to heavily invest into.
There are several units in Tier 2 that we can use to scale during the whole game. And The Fates guarantee that you'll get it to level up is a good jumpstart in that direction:
- Blind Mouse gets us a level 4 treasure early on, which can orient of strategy for the rest of the game.
- Cinder-Ella is a unit we don't want to level up. Just get two and complete their quest for various early treasures.
- Happy Little Tree gets +4 health per turn once leveled up, a great unit to support for our front line.
- Wizard's Familiar pushes the spell synergy and scales very nicely once leveled up
Although I don't like randomness too much, Apocalypse has the upside of letting you know exactly what your game plan is: reach level 6 with as much health as possible. It isn't ideal most of the time, but having a specific goal helps a ton early on in Storybook Brawl.
Similarly to Apocalypse, this hero just wants you to triple a ton of units and see which treasures you can abuse the most. You will likely end up with an army that doesn't make much sense at first, but the treasures are strong enough that they can carry you to an easy top 4.
Closing Words :
Storybook Brawl really is an easy game to pick up if you've played other auto-battlers before. Coming from Battlegrounds, I immediately felt at home even if I didn't know what the units, treasures, or spells were doing at times. And I believe it might be the best game in the genre to discover the auto-battling world currently.
With these simple strategies, you should be able to get a sense of where you want to go in games, making the experience much more enjoyable. As time passes, you will figure out more complicated strategies and feel more comfortable taking risks as well. We probably will highlight some of these strategies in a future article as well. Until then, I hope you have some fun on Storybook Brawl.
Good Game, Everyone!
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